'Weird Al' Yankovic performs Aug. 26 at the Ventura Theater

"Weird Al" Yankovic has been nominated for more than a dozen Grammy Awards and he's won three times. It doesn't get old. "It shows that some people still think that I'm semi-relevant," he says.

Associated Press, file

"I try to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in pop culture," "Weird Al" Yankovic says. "If I can come up with a clever enough idea for something that happens to be at the top of the charts, that's what I go with."

Living up to his nickname, embodied in a musical bazaar of the bizarre, "Weird Al" Yankovic will prove that funny is money when he turns the venerable Majestic Ventura Theater into the happiest place in town Sunday night.

There's been a goofball element in popular music from as far back as the 19th century, when people, especially soldiers, would change the lyrics to folk songs. In the 20th century, old-timers remember Spike Jones, Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer. These days, everyone knows Weird Al, the animated frizzy-haired accordion player who is getting by with his spot-on hilarious parodies of Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and many more.

While it's not the funniest joke in the world — that's when you die laughing — Al is at work on his 14th studio album and tours when he wants to for a few months a year. Not bad for a guy who got his start when Dr. Demento played his tapes many smiles ago.

Al has a plan that works. He finds a perfectly famous hit record, then changes the lyrics and makes it funny: Michael Jackson's "Beat It" became "Eat It," and so it goes. Mojo Nixon and the Reverend Billy C. Wirtz may be funnier, but not enough people have heard of them, and Weird Al has won three Grammys. He discussed the latest during a recent phoner.

Hey, Al, it's Bill with The Star. So how's the Weird Al biz?

Well, you know, we're on the road and about to play in Seattle where the symphony plays, so this should be fun.

No doubt. How often do you play these days?

It varies, but I do roughly three months of the year on average, I guess. This has been a fairly average year.

I compliment you. You have come up with an absolutely brilliant idea: Other people do all the work or the majority of the heavy lifting and you make it funny, so OK then.

There's some work involved in what I do as well.

That didn't come out right — you're absolutely right. What I meant to say is, no one else does what you do as well as you do it, and what a brilliant idea to begin with.

There's quite a few people who do it on YouTube but I've been doing it for longer than most people.

You have your own niche, I'm sure.

Yeah.

How do you go about choosing the person or song to victimize and make funny? How do you choose a song?

Well, I like to say, "Pay homage to."

OK, but you know what I mean.

Well, I try to keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in pop culture — I study the music charts and listen to the radio and surf the Internet and just try to be aware of what's happening and the zeitgeist. And if I can come up with a clever enough idea for something that happens to be at the top of the charts, that's what I go with.

I know you always ask first, but has there been one particularly difficult artist who always says "no"?

Well, I haven't asked him in the last decade or so, but Prince has been notoriously not fond of parody. I did ask him a number of times in the '80s and early '90s but I got the impression that he just wasn't quite into it.

It seems to me that most artists would appreciate what you do and think they had arrived once Weird Al has done a parody of their song. Do you get a lot of that?

Yeah, that's exactly what the guys in Nirvana said about my parody of them. And Lady Gaga recently told Rolling Stone that a Weird Al parody was a rite of passage, so I guess it does indicate that they've reached a certain plateau in their career.

And you'll never run out of material — it's endless. You have tapped into the perpetual motion machine. It's perfect.

Yeah.

So how many Weird Al songs are there? I know you have a three-CD greatest hits compilation, so could you play longer than the Grateful Dead?

Well, I guess. I'm working on my 14th studio album, plus I have a lot of compilations and things like that, but there's quite an oeuvre that I've left behind.

Oeuvre? Wow, so I imagine you may stick with it a while longer then?

I still enjoy it, so why not?

Exactly. I always ask musicians about their strangest gig, but I'm guessing all your gigs are pretty strange. So what happens when you play? Do people dress up? Who goes?

Sometimes people dress up in character or wear Hawaiian shirts, but it's a fun, family-friendly show, so people just go however they feel the most comfortable.

Tell me about the accordion thing. Zydeco accordion guys rock and Lawrence Welk guys do not rock. Where do you fit in to all that?

I would like to think that I'm on the rock side of the spectrum — I try to rock as hard as I can with the accordion. Sometimes I polka down and sometimes there's part of a rock vibe; it just depends on the context.

As a kid, were you the only accordion player you knew, or were there others?

Well, I went to accordion school, so .... but most of my friends at regular school didn't know how to relate to me.

Dr. Demento was to blame for all this?

Yeah, if Dr. Demento never existed, I might have taken a much different trajectory, I'm sure. He played me on the radio back when nobody else would touch me with a 10-foot pole, so it's nice that he was able to give me exposure way back when.

There's a long tradition of funny songwriters — Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and his "The Monster Mash," the Pheromones and on and on, and it's still going.

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, Dr. Demento is still doing a show although it's not on terrestrial radio anymore. He does a show on the Internet at DrDemento.com.

Hey, funny is good, man. How did winning Grammys change things for you, or did they change anything?

Well, you know, it was just a nice show of support from my peers. It's a nice pat on the back and I feel very proud of the fact that today I've won three Grammys — nominated 14 times, I think — so yeah, it's something I'm very happy about and it shows that some people still think that I'm semi-relevant.

Did you have an "aha" moment when you realized you might have a future as a musician?

Yeah, it was about three weeks ago that I realized this is really my life's calling.

(Laughs) That's funny. OK, one more: You and Batman and Scooby-Doo in a cartoon? That's pretty cool.

Yeah, it was a nice little mashup and I'm glad they invited me to come along for the ride. That was fun and strange.